Ray Hughes places a high value on education. Recognizing the role it played in his own success, he has committed considerable resources to helping bright young people get a business education. Since 1983, through his business, Ray Hughes Chevrolet, Inc., he's been providing scholarships for graduating seniors from his alma mater, Slocomb High School, and the local high school and junior college in Enterprise, Alabama. These are merit scholarships given to students with a business background who intend to enroll in a business program in college. To date, Ray Hughes estimates he's given away $250,000 in scholarships. For this commitment, he was one of ten persons recognized as "Businessperson of the Year" by the Future Business Leaders of America at their national conference in Chicago in 1992.

Betty and Ray Hughes Ray Hughes has committed his estate to support outstanding students who want to pursue an education in business.

This commitment has also been extended, through equal bequests of $1.5 million at current value, to the University of Illinois and the University of Alabama. He has established scholarship funds that will provide up to the full cost of education, including tuition, fees, and room and board, for applicants who receive the highest ACT/SAT scores.

Getting the money to attend college was not easy for Ray Hughes. While in high school, his grandfather gave him a pig to raise and his father told him he could keep the proceeds from the sale to use for college. Ray, already imbued with an entrepreneurial spirit, sold the offspring of the origninal pig and used the money to attend a business college in Montgomery. Before completing a degree he joined the Air Force and spent four years during World War II as a member of the Norwich-based 201st Wing of the 8th Air Force.

After the war, he began his college career over, this time at U.C.L.A. The air quality in Los Angeles was bad for his allergies, and after a year he headed home to Alabama to enroll in the university in Tuscaloosa. While there he applied to and was accepted at Michigan, Princeton, and Illinois. When choosing among them he remembered the glowing report his California landlords, Illinois alumni, had given Illinois. So Illinois it was. Ray never regretted that decision. His Illinois years were good ones. He did well in the program and made lots of friends. After graduating with a degree in management in 1949, he worked first for General Motors and then for the Cadillac distributor in Jacksonville, Florida, before buying the Chevrolet dealership in Enterprise in 1967.

Despite the occasional lean year, the dealership has been very successful. In fact, in 1990 it was the nineteenth most profitable Chevrolet dealership in the Atlanta Branch, an area covering 330 dealers. In talking about his business, Ray Hughes commented that he hires the best managers he can find to run each of the five departments in the agency then give each a fair degree of autonomy. This system works especially well when he and his wife take time off to travel, something they love to do. He leaves the business knowing that his managers can handle any situation that arises. To encourage his employees to excel, Hughes says he pays them a "living wage" and then gives monthly bonuses based on the profit earned by each unit. Last May the bonuses ranged from $6,942 to $783.

Ray Hughes has committed his estate to support outstanding students who want to pursue an education in business. Thirty percent of that bequest will come to the University of Illinois. Because Ray remembers how hard it was for him to work his way through school, he is eager to help the best students get their education in a less arduous manner. "I want to help people who are willing to help themselves."

"The education I received at Illinois and Alabama has contributed to my success in business," Ray said. Like so many of our donors, he feels an obligation to repay that debt of gratitude. The scholarships funded by his bequest will help attract the brightest business students in the nation to the College of Commerce.